I'm bored and not tired so I'm looking at Orlando, FL coverage. It looks pretty poor. When compared to T-Mobile, T-Mobile has many more towers (it's pretty apparent where Sprint and T-Mobile have them). There are many areas where there is only one tower within 1-3 miles, and for an urban area...that leaves a lot of very light green, with probably little to no indoor service. That has me quite concerned, as I'll be moving there in September. I only have visited Orlando once with Sprint, last August, and found Verizon to be much better around Disney World. Then again, I found T-Mobile to be lacking around Universal. Maybe they all stink in certain areas? I know my friend down there has bad Verizon service around his house. God, I don't want to go back with Cingular...too expensive! Any other first-hand experiences out there?
I see 8 new cell sites coming in Orlando in the next 120 days and a bunch of brand new sites in the past 90 days that the maps probably don't even reflect yet. Why worry about coverage there now when you won't even be moving there until September? I bet you will find it to be much better than what the maps are showing by the time you move there. Also you can't go by what you had last August because of all of the new additions.
Not to mention Florida coverage is harder for companies than people think. Lots of thick vegetation...trees with lots of leaves that lose the leaves in late Dec and get them back in February. Tmo, Verizon, and Sprint are all 1900MHz there. When I lived in FL the best companies were Verizon and USCC (network now owned by Cingular). Still, you have just described coverage in any big city Airb. One carrier is good one place, but not so good in other parts of town. Sprint is really pretty bad at my house in Mesa, yet around Phoenix I have found them to be excellent. I am convinced I must live in one of their weakest areas in the entire Phoenix metro area. Just bad luck I suppose. But not enough to make me switch to Cingular (no real gripe with them) or big, bad Verizon.
Yes Matt you chose the absolute worst coverage hole for Sprint in the entire Phoenix metro area. When I look at their latest tower maps they have the area blanketed with cell sites. Almost to the point of Las Vegas quality.
My parents live in north Scottsdale (120th St. and Via Linda) which is a pretty large coverage hole for Sprint. I cannot count the number of dropped calls I have had there with Sprint.
Scottsdale is different than Phoenix because it's a largely residential suburb area and it's typically much more difficult to place cell sites.
I just ordered the mobile broadband card for free and $49.99 a month. So here's to hoping my coverage will be good. I will certainly count pcs coverage into account when I look for apartments in july.
Yeah that's a good idea. Before settling on an apartment always check to see if your phone will work first. I don't know why more people don't do that.
Coverage sucked during CTIA last week. Completely pathetic usage/channel planning so the COWs were interfering with the local permanent sites and coverage sucked (even outside of the convention center).
